


Death of a Nation

by Lone_Star_Ranger



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: 0-60, Air Nomad Genocide (Avatar), First work - Freeform, Genocide in the third chapter, No battles in the first chapter, No battles in the second chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 07:15:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26349211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lone_Star_Ranger/pseuds/Lone_Star_Ranger
Summary: What might have the Air Nation Genocide looked like?  This is my take on what might have happened all those years before Aang awoke as the Last Air bender.Rating is T for now, I'll edit if the battles end up being more graphic than currently envisioned.  I'll have a rating before each chapter to help readers decide.  EDIT: Decide that comet-powered fire combat might be a tad graphic, upped the rating to M.  Tried to be as tasteful as I could without being gratuitous.
Relationships: Not a focus
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	1. The Avatar is dead; Long live the Avatar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is more intro than anything. G/T. Implied threats and a recalled non-graphic canon death.

_Finally. The old fool was dead._

Sozin dismounted his dragon as his fire sages hurried towards him. The head of the fire sages bowed respectfully, “Fire Lord, I bring sad tidings. The Avatar has . . .” 

“died. I know. He died fighting a volcano to save his village. I tried… but I couldn’t get close enough.” 

“Please accept our condolences. I know there were policy disagreements, but I know you were good friends.” 

“Thank you. Please leave me be . . . to grieve my friend properly.” The Fire Lord strode into the palace, ignoring the bows of the Fire Sages. Striding into the council room, he addressed the servant standing in the shadows.

“Have my military advisors meet here. One hour.”

o0o0o0o0oo0o0o0o0oo0o0o0o0oo0o0o0o0o0oooo0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o0o0o0o

Few pleasantries were exchanged as the generals settled in. Sozin stood and the few whispers cut off instantly as silence fell.

“The Avatar is dead. Finally, nothing stands between us and glory.” 

Shocked looks flew around the room and one general immediately stood. 

“My Lord, I can have the army mobilized in three days and embarked within the week!” 

“Sit.” Sozin’s single word snapped out like a fire-whip and the general nearly crashed in his hurry to obey. After a dangerously long pause, Sozin continued, “While your enthusiasm to fulfil my dream is admirable, there are complications. Should we embark on conquest, there will be . . . obstacles. The Avatar is reborn into the Air Nation. Should we attack now, the Avatar will vanish. He will be spirited away in the night, trained, raised to fight, and he will emerge from a cocoon like a wasp-moth at the most inconvenient time. The Avatar must be destroyed.”

“How? My Lord, no one knows who the next avatar will be and there are already suspicions that the colonies at the edge of the Earth kingdom are precursors to more invasions. The Avatar will be sheltered in the air nation and won’t be allowed to travel outside the temples.”

“Of course, the Avatar will be concealed in the air nation. Finding the child would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack” Sozin’s lips peeled back, revealing a predator’s smile. “Unless you burn the haystack.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Debut work. Let's see how this goes.
> 
> I have some ideas how this is going to play out. Inspiration drawn from Hello Future me on youtube, but I have drawn slightly different conclusions, but you may see some of ideas pop up in the fic.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mliZ1hezOYE  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zS-RMBan2A
> 
> Supposedly, there is a comic with a similar premise, but I haven't read it. Tried to load it on my computer and it wouldn't zoom in enough to read the words, didn't want to try downloading page by page. Artwork looked great from the thumbnails.


	2. Calm before the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How did the Fire Nation get so close to the air temples?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> G/T to be conservative.  
> No battles, some mild grief, and a tiny bit of foreshadowing.

_Twelve years later_

Lee smiled as he watched the ribbons curl, dancing to the gentle summer breezes summoned by the air bender children that ran through the courtyard laughing. His heart constricted as he thought of his own daughter taking her first steps towards him giggling, the times spent outside on days much like today many long years ago. He shoved his grief aside as he wheeled his cart inside the Southern Air Temple and put a smile on his face as he called out “Food delivery!” 

Gyatso spun lightly. “Ah, thank you! Lee, how would we survive without you?” 

“Not very well. Although if you and that crazy boy of yours keep throwing my fruit around, you’re going to make me think these trips up the mountain aren’t appreciated.”

Gyatso stuck his tongue out, but the two men laughed.

“You’d think by your age, Gyatso, you’d have grown up a little.” 

“Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional.” Gyatso intoned, but his serious façade almost immediately slipped into laughter again. Lee noticed the older monk’s eyes were red as if he had been crying. 

“Something bothering you, old man? The kid finally sit still long enough to beat you in Pai Sho?” 

Gyatso hesitated, “He left this morning.” 

“Three days before the solstice? The biggest party of the summer? He’s taking the nomad part pretty seriously, isn’t he?” 

“It wasn’t like that… The council decided that he was going to continue training at another air temple. Despite getting his tattoos early, he still had much to learn and it was decided that a change of environment would be best.” 

“He didn’t approve?” 

“No. He fled before first light.” Gyatso hesitated as the grief welled back up, blocking any more words.

Lee put his hand on his friend’s back.

“He’s been all over the world on that bison of his. He’ll be fine, it’s not like he’ll fly through a storm or go traipsing through the tunnel to Omashu.”

Gyatso smiled. 

“Thank you for the kind words, but we need to get your cart unloaded if you’re going to make it back down to the village before dark.” 

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Lee headed down the mountain back to the village nestled at the base. While the mountain was nearly inaccessible, the Air Temples were not self-sufficient, relying on the villages that dotted the valley around the mountain for food and supplies, trading beautiful cloths and clothing woven out of sky bison fur.* Gyatso’s grief over that boy cast him back eleven years to a simpler time.

_Lee laughed as his daughter ran out from his house, yelling “dad is home!” His wife followed, but stopped in the door, leaning against the frame. After he whirled his daughter around, he stepped to his wife, greeting her with a kiss._

_“I’m back. What’s for dinner?”_

_“What’s for dinner? No, how are you, my dear? No, I love you’s, I missed you’s?” His wife teased him as the family moved inside. Lee laughed._

_“You look as beautiful as always and the house isn’t burnt, so you’re clearly doing well and you already know I love you and missed you while I train. What I still don’t know is what is for dinner.”_

_“You’re incorrigible.” His wife turned and kissed him again. “Anyway, to answer your question, since it is clearly so important, Komodo sausage and fire noodles.”_

_The family continued to the table laughing and joking as they dished the food onto the plates and settled down to dinner. Just as Lee lifted his first forkful to his mouth, a sharp series of knocks interrupted him as they reverberated through the house._

_Lee swung open the door to see an Imperial messenger._

_“By request of Fire Lord Sozin, you are to report to the throne room at your earliest convenience.”_

_Lee nodded and shut the door. He took a minute to kiss his wife and daughter, threw his uniform and helmet back on, and strode out the door heading to the palace._

_The meeting had been brief. Sozin had ordered him and his wife with a few other imperial firebenders to disguise themselves and travel to the Southern Air temple where they were to settle into the villages surrounding the air temple. Over the years, more and more fire benders had settled around the Air temple, disguised as coastal refugees or disgruntled Fire nation citizens just looking to get away from it all. The monks had welcomed them all._

Lee snapped out of his day-dreaming as he stepped through the door of his house to see another man sitting across the table from his wife.

“Captain Nezim. Why are you here?”

The captain looked up and fixed a steady gaze on Lee.

“To summon you to fulfil your oaths. In four or five days, you’ll be heading back to the Fire Nation.”

“Four or five days?”

“In three days is the solstice festival and the passing of the great comet. Sozin wants the Avatar dead.”

Lee looked at Nezim. “Impossible. The Avatar hasn’t even been announced yet, not for another four years. How do we kill the Avatar when nobody knows who he or she is?”

Nezim walked to the window as a candle cast a flickering light on Nezim’s face as he stared at the moon casting pale silver light on the Air Temple high atop the mountain. 

“Three days, Lee. Three days until there are only three nations.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Try Lee. There's a million Lees." ~ Master Piandao.
> 
> * is a nod to a fanfic I read about Air nomads spinning and weaving fur from their sky bison, but I can't remember the name of the fanfic. If I come across it again or if it is linked in a comment, I will credit the author properly.
> 
> Nezim's naming credit goes to https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/avatar-fire-nation-names.php
> 
> This is the chapter that sets up how the Fire Nation gets close to the temples. I was wondering how did they get close enough to attack without being spotted and while Hello Future Me had some very good points, as soon as fire benders start leaping up the mountain, the air nomads are going to leave. Hence the villages at the base of the mountains. The air nomads need people to supply them with food and such so those villagers will be trusted. What will Lee do? Stayed tuned for betrayal, fire, and combat!


	3. Fire on the Wind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Air Nation Genocide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating M to be safe for scenes of combat, betrayal, animal and human death, and animal torture.

_Three days later_

Lee slipped away from the festivities and made his way towards the bison stables. The stable master greeted him with a smile which Lee returned cheerfully until he was close enough to grab her wrist which he yanked towards him. She crashed against his concealed armor and exhaled in a lingering death rattle as a controlled burst of flame flashed out from Lee’s fist that had smashed into her stomach in a painful uppercut. Lee lowered her to the hay and shrugged his shirt off, revealing the red and black armor of an imperial firebender. 

Stepping into the bison stables, Lee felt a sudden rush of power. The summer solstice has always made him feel stronger, more alive, but this, this was something he had never felt before. Lee looked out at the magnificent sky bison, a few of them beginning to sense the agitation roiling off of him and their soft lowing began to pick up strength. 

Lee turned to see three other villagers also shedding their disguises and looking at him with a mixture of grief and hardening resolve. Shouts began to echo behind them as more firebenders began their ascent to the temple by performing comet-powered fire-assisted leaps that enabled them to ascend the mountain at a rapid pace.

Lee turned back to the bison herd, the air nomads’ best chance of escape, and let the rage and grief of the past eleven years surge into a powerful cone of a flame. The bison’s low moans of anxiety briefly swelled into panicked bellows before fading into a crackle of burning fur and bones. 

Anguished cries sounded behind him as Lee and the four firebenders spun to see air nomad families freezing in shock as they watched their bison fall to five men that had brought them food, laughed with them, and cried with them over the past eleven years. The women and children turned to flee deeper into the temples as a few air bender teens stepped forward to face off against the fire benders. 

Fire and Air clashed in a brief struggle, but the five firebenders were fueled by powerful emotions, the height of summer, and a comet blazing in the atmosphere above them. Lee shrugged through the air gusting against him and threw a punch high with his right hand while his foot stomped on the ground. The air bender teen laughed as he blocked the high arcing fire blast with a swirl of air, but his laughter died almost instantly as Lee’s thin line of flame snaked around his leg and sent him toppling to the ground. Lee threw a swift punch and the teen’s instinctive cry of agony was swallowed by the fireball that struck his head and continued unabated until it burst against the ground behind the teen’s charred corpse. 

Screams mixed with Fire nation battle cries drifted on the lazy summer breezes as the celebratory ribbons began curling against the flames that lapped against the thin fabric. Slowly, the screams faded as a new smell began to rise from the temple, a scent never before smelled in the Air Temples dedicated to the respect of all life-forms: the smell of burning and roasted meat.

Lee trailed through the temple halls, slowly making his way to the rally point. He watched as a mother strapped her baby to her chest before running to the cliff’s edge and leaping off, the glider snapping open before a fire stream consumed the glider and the mother, immolating them in an instant. A girl the same age as the last time he saw his daughter ran down the hall towards him and all Lee could think of was his daughter running out of his house yelling “daddy!” Lee snapped out of his anguished thoughts by the girl’s panicked scream as she turned down a side hallway fleeing away from him. Lee walked in a daze to the edge of the side hallway as the girl’s frantic sobs continued to echo from the hall only to flinch away from the heat as fire erupted from the hallway. The echoing sobs from the hall faded until Lee could only hear the soft crackle of flame.

Lee staggered out of the temple and paced towards a small side room. As he pushed the door open, he came face to face with Gyatso. The monk lifted his head as tears trailed down his face. “Lee, why? You’ve lived here for years.”

“Yes, but you don’t understand. My daughter…”

“You said she passed away before you came here.”

“No, I lied. She’s alive… I think.” 

“You think?”

“You see, our Fire Lord planned every variable. Every fire bender he sent to infiltrate the villages? They all have one thing in common.”

“Family. Family that stayed in the Fire Nation.” Gyatso’s voice was heavy as he slowly comprehended the true evil of Sozin. “What did he threaten to do to your daughter?”

“Threaten? Sozin would never threaten explicitly. He invited me to participate in a long mission where I would travel here with my wife, while my daughter attended the most prestigious schools and would be raised by the best tutors the royal family had to offer. I listened with half an ear to the promises as I watched a platypus-bear be slowly roasted alive behind a glass pane, flame crawling with agonizing slowness down each limb, the fire creeping forward then reversing to allow a healer to tend to the burns just so that each area could be burned over and over and over again.”

Gyatso nodded slowly. “Your daughter slept with a stuffed platypus-bear?”

“Every night.”

Gyatso drew a breath to speak, but the door crashed open as a team of fire-benders stormed in. Lee spun as Nezim stormed up to him. “One job, Lee, but now you reveal our secrets to the enemy?” Nezim shook his head, “Arrest the traitor. Kill the old man.” 

Lee barely had time to react as Gyatso suddenly threw him through the ceiling, all the air in the room rushing out with his flailing body. No fire erupted below him as the firebenders keeled over one by one, instantly suffocated by the lack of air. As Lee began his long fall to the ground, he could have sworn he heard the wind whisper “Go, love your daughter. I forgive you, my friend.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, thanks for reading. If people would like a epilogue to wrap up the characters, I can come back to write one, but otherwise I think my first foray into fanfiction is complete. Let me know in the comments what you think!


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